Tuesday 9 November, 2010

Wired explains how to break through China's great Firewall. In El Pais Semanal, Felipe Gonzales explains how power functions - except in the Vatican. In Outlook India, Amartya Sen calls for sanctions against Burma. The Economist recommends buying shares on the pirate stock exchange. What European culture are immigrants supposed to integrate into, asks Elet es Irodalom. Is it okay to film the breasts of your teenage daughters, asks Vanity Fair. And in the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith looks at Facebook and shrinks. read more

Tuesday 26 October, 2010

Digitalisation will not kill the publishing industry but it will turn it on its head, according to Prospect. Esprit asks why it was the burqa of all things that has united Flemish and Walloons. Outlook feels the pulse of an ailing press. In Slate, Anne Applebaum is impressed that the French and British have stayed true to stereotype as axes fall. The New York Times portrays the Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Salon.com visits a Ghanaian witch camp. read more

Tuesday 12 October, 2010

In the New Yorker, Gawker founder Nick Denton hopes to strike gold online. In Elet and Irodalom Peter Nadas is convinced that a bourgeoisie is forming in Hungary. Prospect boards the jolly trolleyology. France's Sarrazin has been born in the form of Hugues Lagrange, who defends his corner in Telerama. The TLS introduces the cricket-bat wielding Allahakbarries. Remi Brague and Jerome di Costanzo insist in Open Democracy, that secularism is a Catholic invention. And in the NYRB, Alma Guillermoprieto deplores the Mexican catastrophe. read more

Tuesday 5 October, 2010

In Al Ahram, Egyptian authors ask why their books have been banned from the Kuwait Book Fair. Lawrence Lessig carves up the Facebook film for the New Republic. In Salon.eu.sk, author Drago Jancar remembers the murder of thousands of Slovenian soldiers by the communists. Rue89 reports on the advertising boycott that was the death of the Moroccan magazine Nichane. In Nepszabadsag, Agnes Heller is not remotely surprised about the decline of democracy in Hungary. In Granta, four Pakistani writers explain how to write about Pakistan. read more

Tuesday 28 September, 2010

Must we be modern? Alain Finkielkraut asksin Sinn und Form. The Boston Review watches blood fill the heads of Sonya and Leo Tolstoy. In Prospect, the children of immigrant families throw multiculturalism into the bin. Polityka discovers how the author Slawomir Mrozek wrestled with his Polishness and those wet Polish hens. MicroMega celebrates the democratic astuteness of Mario martone's film "Noi credevamo". Eurozine reads the correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Leni Yahil. The New York Times finds out why a cat sat on Kafka's unpublished legacy is as good as burning. read more

Tuesday 21 September, 2010

Merkur stands on the battlefield in front of the kindergarten and thinks about liberty. Mao was personally responsible for the Great Hunger,John Gray learns in the New Statesman from historian Frank Dikötter. In Polityka, Adam Krzeminski sounds the death toll for the humanities. Prospect reluctantly submits to the 200-strong cast of You Me Bum Bum Train - alone. In Eurozine, the legal historian Mikhail Xifaras describes Richard Stallman's copyleft movement. The Boston Globe tracks down lost writers' libraries. read more

Tuesday 14 September, 2010

The NYRB remembers the centuries of Catholic resistance to integration into U.S. culture. Arundhati Roy discusses revolutionary strategies in Outlook India. Al Ahram is thrilled by a Ramadam production of Jean Genet's 'Deathwatch" in Egypt. In Rue89, Noam Chomsky defends Vincent Reynouard's right to deny the Holocaust. Le Monde has little appetite for Halal burgers. In the New Humanist, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Kenan Malik battle it out over the burqa ban. The Independent prints a week's worth of articles on so-called honour killings. read more

Tuesday 7 September, 2010

Even in the golden age of modernism, Tom McCarthy reminds upcoming authors in the Guardian, writers didn't have it easy. In Le Monde, Andre Glucksmann rails against the deportation of the Roma in France. Das Magazin explains how to pull a collapsing small town back onto its feet. In Elet es Irodalom, Laszlo Földenyi delights in being sucked into paintings by Uri Asaf. Nine writers look into the hollow eye sockets of the future in NZZ Folio. Vanity Fair delves into the horrors of the Greek economy. read more

Tuesday 27 July, 2010

The Hungarian magazines are thrilled to be able to read Herta Müller's "Everything I Own I Carry With Me". In the Blätter, Jürgen Habermas calls for an extension of human rights into the social sphere. In La regle du jeu, big name European intellectuals defend their Croatian colleague Predrag Matvejevitch, who faces imprisonment for describing an ultra-nationalist Croatian poet as the "Catholic Taliban". Slate wants to know whether Nabokov's poem "Pale Fire" was meant seriously or not. The TLS meets radical feminists with fabulous names - like the anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre. Przekroj looks at the two types of Turkish cinema. And in the NYT, Jay Rosen explains why the Internet is eroding America's most beautiful ideal. read more

Tuesday 20 July, 2010

Mediapart decries the connivances of French politics and media. In the Nation, Colin Robinson picks a fight with Amazon. Osteuropa rolls out the red carpet for the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. The London Review remembers the media feeding frenzy around Tolstoy's deathbed. In Opendemocracy, the poet Tatiana Shcherbina feels the evil creeping back into Russia. read more

Tuesday 12 July, 2010

The Swiss Magazin looks at the lawyers and doctors who are producing stewardesses and farmers. Caffe Europa shares Ulrich Beck's optimism about the religious mix of the future. The Boston Globe looks at the powerlessness of facts in the face of false convictions. In Le Monde, Michel Onfray trembles before the language of empire. The New Statesmen evaluates the new young supertaskers. The TLS reads a book about 19th anarchists. Outlook India and the NYT tackle terror in India, Pakistan and Yemen. read more

Tuesday 6 July, 2010

The New Yorker wonders which is better equipped to determine the authenticity of a Leonardo da Vinci: the connoisseur or the forensic scientist. Polityka picks through the remains of the Fourth Republic. In The Observer, Claire Denis talks about shame and humiliation. In La regle du jeu, Roberto Saviano does not like what he sees in the eyes of his admirers. MicroMega has witnessed the birth of a political monster: illiberal democracy. The London Review of Books is looking for aliens to take care of our nuclear waste.
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Tuesday 29 June, 2010

The New Yorker profiles Saad Mohseni, Afghanistan's first media mogul. La vie des idees and the Guardian recommend Gilbert Achcar's book "The Arabs and the Holocaust". The children in Hungary are eating their revolution, fears Elet es Irodalom. Magyar Narancs and Rue89 fear for independence of the press. In Open Democracy, Lisbet Rausing worries about the future of the library. In the NYRB, Tim Parks warns non-English writing authors against liberal international readers. read more